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Deputies ID Fairport man charged in attack on St. John Fisher College

Posted at: 06/18/2013 10:48 PM
Updated at: 06/19/2013 6:43 PM

Police say two men saw a co-worker being carjacked, tried to intervene and ended up being attacked with a baseball bat.

Police say it all started at Flaherty's Restaurant on Route 31 in Macedon Tuesday night. That's where investigators say the suspect, Michael Mahoney, tried to rob two women of their cell phones and purses.

When police got on scene, they say Mahoney took off in a car west on Route 31 leading police on a high speed chase. Police say Mahoney then headed west on 490 and shortly after, he crashed his car near St. John Fisher College. Investigators say he ran onto the campus, tried to carjack a female employee and that's when the two men tried to help. Police say one had a bat, but Mahoney ended up with it and is accused of using it to assault the two men. Police eventually found Mahoney on the campus and arrested him.

Police released dash cam video that shows the chase as it happened. Macedon's police chief say his officers chased Mahoney from Flaherty's up to Turk Hill Road in Perinton, with Mahoney passing other cars on the left and right sides of the road. The chief says it took a coordinated effort by a number of agencies to catch Mahoney.

Chief John Collella, Macedon Police Department, said, "From the time the incident began here, we were in constant communication between both 911 centers. It was excellent work, excellent work and response by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office and Brighton, Fisher security and the NYSP. We had that area flooded. We had a perimeter set up and Monroe County did an awesome job."

Mahoney was then taken into custody a short time later. He was arraigned late Wednesday afternoon in his hospital bed and is charged with assault.

Some St. John Fisher College employees contacted News10NBC to say they're now concerned for their safety because school officials failed to send out an alert. Fisher released a statement saying, “Because the incident occurred in the middle of the night, students are not on campus, there were very few staff members on campus, and again, the campus was secured swiftly, we chose not to send out a campus-wide alert.”

Police say everything happened very quickly Monday night. From the moment the car crashed on 490, to the alert that the suspect might be on campus to the 911 call about the carjacking and baseball bat assault.

There's no question that what the two maintenance workers did was heroic. They saw trouble and they ran to it, not from it. But was it the right thing to do? News10NBC asked college safety director Dave DiCaro about it.

News10NBC also obtained the crime report for St. John Fisher College. There were very incidents that occurred on campus this year.